Somewhere between first and second base, Christopher Morel tossed his helmet windmill-style in euphoric celebration.
By the time he sprinted around third, a mob of his Chicago Cubs teammates and coaches waiting for him at home plate, Morel ripped off his jersey and left it in his dust. His three-run, walk-off homer sparked bedlam at Wrigley Field where 40,869 fans watched the Cubs pull out a 4-3 win over the White Sox in the final game of the City Series.
One thought flitted through during Morel’s mad dash around the bases: “I hit a home run — Cubs win!”
David Ross started high-fiving bench coach Andy Green when his manager brain kicked in, making sure Morel touched every base.
Second baseman Nico Hoerner’s stomach hurt from laughing watching Morel’s exuberance and soccer move to pull off his own jersey, telling the Tribune, “I couldn’t believe what I was watching in front of me, but for anyone that knows him well, it was all really genuine … couldn’t have written it any better.”
The biggest hit in his young career embodied the late-inning comeback fight the Cubs have often manifested, exemplified during Morel’s at-bat that highlighted his offensive development. His showdown against White Sox closer Gregory Santos represented a rematch from the day before when the right-hander bested Morel to start the ninth inning Tuesday with a three-pitch strikeout in the Sox’s victory.
Cody Bellinger’s leadoff double and a Dansby Swanson walk set up Morel’s heroics. He quickly fell behind 0-2 whiffing at a 100.5 mph inside sinker and chasing a low-and-away slider out of the zone. Santos and catcher Yasmani Grandal went back to the slider away, but Morel didn’t chase.
Morel pounced on the next pitch, a sinker mistakenly left down the middle, to dramatically avenge his strikeout. Echoing the advice he received last year from former teammate Willson Contreras, Morel reminded himself to “stay in the eye of the hurricane” when he fell behind in the count to Santos.
“Just try to make the moment just about me,” Morel said through an interpreter. “Just think about what I’m doing in that moment. Don’t think about anything else, focus in the moment and focus on myself.”
Morel’s ability to seize the opportunity didn’t surprise Hoerner, who first played alongside him in 2018 at Short-season Eugene.
“It’s the same guy at the heart of it with his energy and electricity,” Hoerner told the Tribune afterwards. “It’s amazing how far he’s come and how much it seems like the big moments really almost calm him down in some ways — and then he explodes of course. But just his ability to swing and miss or chase and then just move on to the next pitch, that just speaks to where he’s at mentally. He’s been a huge part of our success.”
Morel’s walk-off homer was the first by the Cubs since Jason Heyward’s on Sept. 8, 2021.
“You have adrenaline and you have those moments when you’re on the big stage and you’ve got a chance to do something special to change the game and he harnesses that emotion so much better every time out it feels like,” Ross said. “He doesn’t always get the big hit, but he just seems to be maturing and controlling the strike zone and putting his best swing on the pitches he’s looking for.
“When he’s swinging the bat well, our offense rolls.”
The walk-off homer saved the Cubs (62-58) from a bad loss, snatching a two-game series sweep by the Sox into a victory that moved them into a three-way tie with the Cincinnati Reds and Miami Marlins for the final wild card spot.
The maturation of Morel’s plate discipline over the course of the season has seen the 24-year-old bounce back within a plate appearance when it appears wild swings have him headed towards an easy out. The walk-off sequence would not have happened without Javier Assad’s quality start (six innings with three runs, including two earned) keeping them in the game or right-hander Michael Fulmer’s best appearance of the season. Called into the game with no outs and the bases loaded in the top of the eighth, Fulmer struck out Luis Robert Jr., Yoán Moncada and Andrew Vaughn on 11 pitches to get out of the jam.
“He swings so hard, that’s intimidating already on a pitcher, and knowing the fact that he resets himself after a bad swing, a good swing, it doesn’t matter, each pitch is a new pitch for him,” Fulmer said of Morel. “Whether it’s 1-2 like tonight 0-0, he’s going to give it his all.”
Nick Madrigal put the Cubs on the board in the eighth to cut the Sox’s lead to 3-1 with a basket shot to left field for his second home run of the year. Another little moment that added up to one big swing.
“You can feel there’s something brewing in this clubhouse,” Madrigal said. “Games like this, to pull those out when it wasn’t looking good for most of the game, lets me know you’ve got special teams that win these kinds of games.”
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